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Sausage Rolls

A pastry made from flour, butter, water, and sausage, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sausage Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pastry

  1. Sift the flour into a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter until combined.

  3. Add a little cold water to form a paste.

  4. Knead lightly and roll out into a round shape.

Assemble the rolls

  1. Divide the dough into four squares.

  2. Remove the skins from the sausages and cut them in half.

  3. Place half a sausage on each square of dough.

  4. Wash the edges of the dough with water to seal.

  5. Fold the dough over the sausage and secure the ends by turning them in.

  6. Wash the top with egg or milk.

Bake

  1. Place in a greased and lined baking tin.

  2. Prick the tops with a fork before baking.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with liquid and rolled out.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to create a tender, flaky texture in the pastry.
Sausages
Provide the savoury filling wrapped inside the pastry.
Egg or milk
Washed over the top to give the pastry a golden, glossy browning.

The step that matters

Rub in the butter until combined. Butter must be rubbed in until it is evenly distributed and fine like crumbs, so the cold fat coats the flour and separates the layers, giving a tender, flaky pastry rather than a tough one.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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